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| Sunday, 18 January 2004 |
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Asians need to cooperate to create a strong economy: Thai PM DHAKA , Jan 17 (AFP) AFP - Asian countries must shed their differences and cooperate to turn around the region's economy, Thailand's premier told a meeting seeking to revive global trade liberalisation here Saturday. "If there was a time for Asians to awake and pull together, it is now," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said as the two-day conference opened in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. The Thai premier flew into Dhaka for a few hours to deliver the keynote speech at the conference organised by the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The meeting, which comes in the wake of the collapse of trade talks in Cancun, Mexico, is being attended by representatives of 37 nations. The United States is not on the list of participants. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, inaugurating the conference, said: "Globalisation holds out promise, but with contrasts. It represents prosperity for the fortunate few, and despair for millions." "The backlash against globalisation draws its force from such inequalities (and) we have to search for ways to bridge this gap," she said. World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi praised the business community's effort to breath life into the multilateral talks. "Developed countries need to see further opening of their markets to exports of developing countries not as altruism or charity, but as being in their own enlightened self interest," he said. Supachai added that developing countries need to approach these negotiations with "a view to integrating themselves into the multilateral trading system -- rather than shielding themselves indefinitely from competition." European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said that commerce was no longer the preserve of a small group of rich countries and that developing nations were making their voices heard in international negotiations. "Our current rule book that governs trade is now old and needs to be adapted to today's and tomorrow's economic realities," Lamy said. Ministers from WTO member states gathered in Cancun last September to try to revive trade-liberalization talks that were launched in Qatar's capital, Doha, in 2001 and are due to conclude by January 1, 2005. But the discussions failed to yield consensus on such hot-button issues as eliminating agricultural export subsidies in industrialized nations and proposals to extend the WTO mandate to cross-border investment. There is growing concern about WTO members' failure to relaunch the global trade talks by a December 15 deadline. There are also worries the Doha round will not be completed by the end of 2004 as planned. The ICC believes a private initiative such as the Dhaka conference would be useful for seeking common ground among world trade players, but has cautioned against overly high expectations. Mahbubur Rahman, ICC's Bangladesh chapter chairman, said, "We call for development-friendly globalisation." "Recent development history unequivocally shows that poor countries are being further marginalised (and) the poor within the poor countries are being further excluded," he said. He called for a "system that is inclusive, that ensures that the disadvantaged are able to participate effectively and (in which) the gains are equitably shared." The conference ends Sunday. |
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